


Magic Unleashed

by zweltstein7



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Albus Dumbledore Bashing, BAMF Harry Potter, F/F, F/M, He's not evil, Multi, Parental Sirius Black, Sirius Black Lives, Thirsty Hermione Granger, Umbridge is a bitch, just a bit senile
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-09-26
Updated: 2020-04-04
Packaged: 2020-10-28 21:41:10
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Underage
Chapters: 6
Words: 15,576
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20785469
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zweltstein7/pseuds/zweltstein7
Summary: After almost having his soul ripped from him when rescuing Sirius Black in his third year, Harry starts to notice something unusual happening with his magic.From there he proceeds to practice his new skills to keep his now almost limitless magical power in check.  If you thought the Boy-Who-Lived was powerful before, then beware because his magic is free of its shackles and looking to run wild.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Hello, this is my first fanfiction and I would appreciate any feedback, positive or negative. As far as the story itself, I have made a few minor cannon changes for the first two years. Mostly things that facilitate Harmony which is my OTP. 
> 
> I don't have concrete plans for past fourth year yet, but I plan on this story extending a year or two past that point.

Harry had been struggling. He had finally found out the truth of his parents' death and who truly betrayed them. If he had been just the slightest bit faster with his wand he could have stopped Pettigrew's escape. As it was, he and Hermione had barely managed to survive an onslaught of almost a hundred dementors. 

Then they went back in time. 

They managed to rescue Buckbeak from death by beheading, lure away a transformed Remus Lupin from their former selves, and then Harry produced his second corporeal Patronus to drive off every single one of the dementors. 

After he and Hermione returned to the hospital ward, to preserve the timeline or something, they had had more than a couple private laughs at Ron's confusion. But they eventually left as they weren't injured enough to really warrant a stay of their own. They had walked back to the Gryffindor tower slowly, not wanting to end the night just yet. It was about halfway back that Harry realized that Hermione's hand was entwined with his own.

Hermione was his best friend. Ron was special to Harry for being his first friend but Hermione just seemed to understand him so much better. She understood the real reason that he was so focused on Quirrell acquire the stone was because of his parents. Though to be fair, he wasn't expecting to actually confront Voldemort himself down in the final room. She had managed to solve the riddle of the basilisk and the Chamber of Secrets. Not to mention all of the times that they just hung out while studying or how she always watch him play Quidditch despite not enjoying it herself. No, Hermione was definitely his best friend, but as they walked hand in hand, letting the events of the night settle on them he felt something change. 

He squeezed her hand a little tighter and when it was time for them to separate and go to their respective dorms, he was more than a little reluctant to let go. The next day when they woke up, he walked down to the common room and his eyes immediately searched for her trademark bushy hair. She noticed him at about the same time that he found her and the knowing and slightly mischievous that she gave him made his heart flutter. It was about an hours later that his real struggles began. 

Class had been cancelled due to his godfather's escape so he had decided to talk to Remus first thing. He had a hunch that he might be too late to do so if he waited. He left the common room, and Hermione, to head for the DADA classroom. He found Remus packing up as he suspected, even while still clearly racked with the pain from his recent change and the fight with an angry hippogriff. Harry hated the reasons for his resignation but he understood them. He said his goodbyes to the man who should have been an honorary uncle to him and accepted the Marauder's Map when Remus handed it back. With nothing else to do he headed down to the great hall for breakfast.

On the way, he could feel his magic getting a little riled up. It wasn't unusual for a surplus of emotion to do that to him. For example, blowing up his Aunt Marge when she insulted his mum. He was confused though because he actually didn't feel particularly emotional right now. He was happy for Sirius and a bit regretful of Remus' circumstances but it wasn't near the level of the night before and nothing of the like had happened then. 

A few corridors away from the great hall now, Harry felt a wisp of magic begin to 'leak' from his magical core. Though it had a small size it wasn't a small amount of magic by any measure, probably being enough for a above average stupify. He reigned it in and circled about how Professor Flitwick had taught him in one of his first classes. It was a simple technique used to kill off magical 'momentum' and stabilize a wizard or witches core and he did it effortlessly while he continued walking. The wisp slowed down gradually but when Harry went to push it back into his core it just bounced off and out of him before he could catch it. 

A nearby torch flared to a meter in height before slowly reducing back to its normal size. Harry was very confused. He might have done something similar at the beginning of his first year but he had actually been one of the quickest to get the skill down and had never made a mistake with it since. He tried sounding out his core to see if he could tell why he had so randomly released accidental magic but nothing seemed out of place. The only odd thing was that his core still felt like it was at full capacity despite his obvious discharge.

When he reached a couple dozens meters from the great hall two more wisps came out from his core in the same manner as the first. Harry captured them and rotated them around until they should've slowed enough to be taken back into his core. He was careful this time and tried to bring one of them in while the other stayed in orbit around his core. He pushed slowly but when the wisp came into contact with his core it was as if it hit a physical wall. Before it could escape his control, Harry pushed the wisp back into orbit with its twin. He didn't have any way to push them back into his core but releasing them to wreak random havoc was just not going to happen. 

Harry was slightly distracted by his issues with his core that he didn't notice most of the hall give him curious glances as he walked in. He sat down next to Hermione out of habit but controlling his magic was taking a good deal of concentration to the point that he was only half listening to the conversations around him. Hermione wasn't talking much either which he was grateful for. Not because he didn't like talking with her but he didn't know how well he could hold a conversation, which he occasionally struggled with anyway, with only half his normal attention. He chewed woodenly on some toast and he slowly grasped how to keep his magic in check and still be aware of his surroundings. It would still feel like a fly was buzzing in his ear but much more manageable nonetheless.

Harry looked over at Hermione and noticed him giving a concerned look. She had apparently misinterpreted his expression from the last while though.

"I'm sure snuffles is just fine Harry. He and Bu- I mean Witherwings should have found somewhere safe by now. And Remus … well I'll be sad to see him gone. He was the best defense teacher we have ever had by far."

Harry could only nod, not correcting her misunderstanding. He wanted to figure out what was going on with his magic but his new realization of his feelings for the bushy haired witch made it hard for him to ask her opinion on the matter. Ron was similarly off the table. Ron would never let him forget it if Harry told him he had a moment of accidental magic despite nearly being a fourth year. He honestly never even considered the teachers as a first option. No, Harry would try to figure out a solution on his own for now. First step would be to get rid of the excess magic somewhere away from prying eyes.

He gave Hermione an excuse about wanting to stow away the map before he was caught with it again and left with a spare slice of toast in his hand to snack on along the way. Hermione gave him a look that he took to mean that he was probably breaking a rule or two by bringing food from the hall but, if so, it was one Harry noticed her break often enough that he knew she wouldn't tell on him. She just sighed and waved him off.

When he was out and enclosed in a corner where it would be hard to notice, he pulled his recently reacquired map and searched for a sufficiently unused classroom to release his magic. Finding one that should suit his needs, he muttered the dismissal and headed there. He didn't realize that not once had he drawn his wand while using the map.

When he opened the door, he was assaulted by a cloud of dust that made him cough violently. He held the sleeve of his robes to his mouth as he walked towards the front of the class. He pulled out his wand and quickly decided on his first spell to use. Harry drug one of wisps out of orbit and into his wand. With a wave, all of the dust instantly vanished from the entire classroom. Harry stared around slack-jawed. 

He had definitely not been aiming to clear the entire area with a single spell. He figured that he would maybe clean up the area around the teacher's podium and come to continue his impromptu cleaning spree if his magic should act up again before he fixed it. Furthermore, the spell he used was one that used magic to act like a magical feather duster. It was one of the spells that were taught solely for theory practice since it just wasn't worth the trouble otherwise. It took some time to clean an area by having the duster 'sweep' over it and would constantly drain magic to maintain itself and even more magic to actually get rid of the dust. Since it was possible to just directly banish the dust instantly, transfigure it into something useful, or just do any of the thousand better options, the spell was considered completely useless. That is if you weren't a teenaged wizard specifically looking to waste magic in a dusty room.

And yet, the result was nothing like it should have been and Harry could feel the wisp of magic flowing back into him from his wand. Harry pulled it into orbit and realized that it was significantly smaller than before even if not fully used up. But what was he supposed to do now?

Without another option, Harry transfigured one of the chairs into a rock about the size of a galleon and poured the full second wisp and the remainder of the first into the spell. If he had to guess, the transfiguration would hold for about a day. He didn't want to be carrying it around and end up blindsided when it randomly returns to its chair form but It would leave evidence of his use of magic outside of class. 'Well, it should be fine since the room was so unused in the first place.' Letting loose a sigh, he confirmed that he no longer had errant magic buzzing around his core and walked off towards the Gryffindor tower. 

On his way he changed his mind and turned to head in the direction of Professor Flitwick's office. He didn't have a strong relationship with the half-goblin teacher but he was amicable enough in class that Harry was fairly confident he hadn't any ill will at least. He arrived and knocked on the door and heard a muffled reply to enter.

"Hello professor."

"Well hello Mr. Potter. What can I do for you? If you are interested in joining the dueling circuit I would be more than happy to tutor you." It was something that Flitwick always persisted about. One of his goals as a teacher was to teach the youngest pro duelist and Harry was one of several students he had his eye on.

"No thank you sir. I actually came because I have some questions about something you taught us in first year. The method to stabilize our cores in fact."

"I see, you were exposed quite heavily to the dementors yesterday if I have heard correctly. It would not be unusual for that to have an effect on one's ability to focus their magic, even for adults."

"Well, It's not so much the control of my magic that is the issue."

"Oh. Then what is?"

"Earlier I felt a bit of my magic slip from my core and I used the technique to slow and pull it back in, but when it hit my core it bounced off and kind of … (mumbled)made a torch flare up."

"Interesting. If I assume that you did everything correctly then I honestly don't know why it would have failed. I have only heard of similar incidents from teaching children who had a seal put on their magic until they could control it but you have never shown any deficiency in magical power that would indicate a seal. Furthermore, even the descriptions of those circumstances differ a great deal from what you have described. I unfortunately am not a specialist in the field of magical anomalies. I would recommend that you talk to madam Pomfrey. The effects of dementor exposure are varied per person so this may just be a case of that which will fade with time."

______

It did not fade with time. 

Madam Pomfrey had found absolutely nothing wrong with his core despite numerous scans. When it was almost time for lunch Harry felt his magic leak out again, this time again with only one wisp instead of two. He wrangled it into orbit and just powered through lunch so that he could escape to the classroom from earlier as quick as possible. Several more spells of various effect and another transfigured chair later, Harry had finally used up the excess once again. 

The next time happened two hours later. The time after that was only separated by one hour. Then a half. 

By the time dinner came around, Harry had more than six wisps whirling about inside him and that’s only because he managed to sneak away again after the second time. The good news was that keeping several wisps in orbit without colliding, which always resulted in an accident, had gotten easier. As more wisps started circling, they had gained a stability that made them less likely to fly off and away but it was still a struggle. He felt like he was getting the hang of it while he sat in the common room with Hermione but he was somewhat dreading sleeping.

He didn't know if the magic would calm down with him losing consciousness and if it didn't there was going to be a good deal of magic doing whatever it wants once he closed his eyes. He stayed in the common room long after everyone else had retired to bed just sitting on the couch in front of the fire. He felt more and more magic continue to leak and then accumulate but his dread could no longer keep his exhaustion at bay. Lulled by the fire, Harry fell asleep and lost all control over the wisps and their orbits that he had been carefully maintaining for the past few hours. 

_____________

Harry woke up earlier than usual due to having slept on the common room couch. It was amazing for sitting but a lousy bed apparently. He was immediately glad that no one had come down yet when he saw what had happened. Pretty much all the furniture looked like it had been hit by a blasting charm and then lit on fire. The rug looked to have had all of its colors inverted making it look like it would be more at home in Ravenclaw. Meanwhile, several chess pieces had been enlarged to about a meter tall and were floating about the wood beams of the ceiling. Countless other similar changes riddled the common room and made it look like a setting picked from Alice's Wonderland.

Most of the disaster could be undone with carefully done reparo charms but many of the other subtler enchantments would take ages to find the correct counter charm. Time that he did not have. The rest of his house would wake up eventually and see the result of his magic gone haywire.

'Maybe if I clean up the big things like the broken furniture I can blame it on the twins. They would probably be fine with selling it as one of their pranks but this is a bit much, even for them.'

Harry didn't know whether to laugh or cry when he noticed the dozens of wisps orbiting his core. He had regained control as soon as he woke up but the rate at which they were accumulating had become ridiculous while he slept. 

Harry simply sighed and moved closer to the chairs which looked the worst off. He pulled out his wand and began to mutter the words for the repairing charm but as soon as he swished his wand he felt all of the wisps flood to his hand and through the magical tool. Harry's eyes widened but the next moment he let out a yelp and dropped the holly and phoenix feather wand that suddenly felt like he imagined red hot iron would. His hand didn't have any visible burn marks but the sensation of burning persisted for almost a minute before it was possible for to open his eyes again. 

The sight he saw was an almost complete inversion of the disaster zone the common room had resembled before. Meaning it had been completely restored to its original condition with not one kaleidoscope tapestry, floating chess piece, or floating bubbles of water to be found. Harry had never been so happy to see something normal since the Dursleys ruined the term for him. The relief made the tension drain from his body and he fell boneless onto the newly repaired chair that was nearby. He just sat there, doing his best to ignore the mana building up again around his core. He bent to pick up his wand hesitantly, afraid that it might burn him again as soon he moves it. It did nothing when he touched it and continued to do so while he inspected it. It looked mostly fine but at the base of it were five burn marks right where he would normally hold it. Apparently his wand hadn't been as lucky as his hand.

After sitting down for a while, his aches from sleeping on the couch returned and he decided to go up to bed to lay down till everyone else woke up. His dormmates were sleeping as deeply as always so it was no problem to sneak to his bed and pretend like he hadn't spent the entire night in the common room. He waited for the sun to rise high enough to peek into the tower windows and wake his friends while he contemplated what to do with his magic.


	2. Goodbyes and a Training Montage

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Harry learns how to deal with his magic a little bit better while at the Privet Drive.

Hermione was lost in thought as the bright red Hogwarts Express made its way back to King's Cross station. She didn't know what to think about Harry after the last few days. She would admit to herself at least, that she had a small (ok, a big) crush on Harry ever since he saved her from the mountain troll. Ron had just stood on the side while Harry levitated the troll's club out of its grasp and then grabbed her to run. When Harry dragged her through the door into the hallway he apparently lost control of the spell and made the club knock the troll out when it fell on its head heavily. After that he became her first friend. He didn't laugh at her and call her a bossy know-it-all. He had even complimented her hair despite its obvious ugliness.

In second year, the whole school turned against him and called him the 'Heir of Slytherin' which was obviously untrue to anyone with a bit of logical reasoning. Despite this, he once again did what he does best and tried to solve the problem to save those in danger. She had just managed to figure out the true identity of Slytherin's monster when she was petrified but Harry had gotten her clue and then faced off and won against not just a basilisk, but the shade of Lord Voldemort's diary. When she awoke she was a little disappointed Harry and Ron weren't there but madam Pomfrey said it was only because Dumbledore himself told them they had to go to the leaving feast instead. She also pulled Hermione over before she left to tell her that Harry had visited her every day since she had been petrified and even several nights. He had used his invisibility cloak to sneak in but the nurse had her ways of knowing and simply didn't have the heart to send him back to his dorms.

When she entered the hall and he ran to envelop her in a hug, she had almost gave in to the urge to kiss him but old fears about her appearance and her new fear of somehow messing up their friendship made her stop from going that far.

Their entire third year of school had been full similar struggles. Only after everything happened with Sirius, Buckbeak, and misuse of a time-turner did she finally crack a little. She had grabbed his hand on the way back to the gryffindor tower, looking for any type of connection she could. She didn't even think he realized that he took the initiative to wind his fingers together with hers until they were halfway back and he tightened his grip ever so slightly. Hermione had been blushing madly the entire time and couldn't help but think that it just felt so right to be holding hands with Harry.

The next day, she woke up and headed down to the common room like always and waited for him to wake up. He said that he needed to go see Professor Lupin, so she went down to the great hall ahead of him. She was about halfway through her breakfast when she saw him walk in. Correction … felt him walk in. His eyebrows were furrowed in either confusion or frustration and her own magic seemed to gravitate toward him while he moved to sit next to her like always. She was more than a little distracted by the thrum of power that was washing over her since he sat down and found herself falling into silence while she ate. 

When she tried to reassure him about Sirius and Remus, thinking that was the issue, he turned slightly to nod at her and she got a good look at his eyes. They weren't worried but focused. It was the same level of focus she would glimpse through her binoculars right before he began one of his suicidal dives during a quidditch game. She had seen it a few other times like when he was studying but it was never as intense. Today it seemed like whatever dial controlled this phenomenon had been turned up to the max. She had no idea what was taking so much of his attention today but seeing him like that was beyond exhilarating. 

  
She breathed a sigh of relief when he left, for some reason which she didn't really listen too. She waved him off and tried her best to ignore the toast he was taking with him. Part of knew that it was against school rules, but another reminded her that she had done the same several times as well when she was caught up in a good book and couldn't be bothered to sit for a full meal.

The benefit to Harry leaving, besides being able to watch him g-Stop it Hermione!, was that she no longer had to worry about him noticing how she had been rubbing her thighs together for several minutes. It was completely unfair. It was bad enough that Harry had to go around acting like knight in shining armor and denying it or that he was unfailingly kind to her despite her bossiness and know-it-all air. How in the world was a witch supposed to resist when he goes around radiating magic like that. She finished her breakfast but the heat from earlier didn't seem to diminish and she decided she was in need of a shower … a very cold shower.

Now, she was sitting a bit away from Harry as they headed home, or just 'back' in Harry's case, and couldn't help but notice everything about her best friend, and centerpiece of her late night fantasies. The focus in his eyes was no longer near as intense as it had been on that first day she noticed it, thank god, but it was possible to see a flash of it every now and again. 

In a kind of juxtaposition, his magical aura had only seemed to grow. Only the fact that she had a few days to acclimate to her friends new feature allowed her to maintain her common sense while they shared the compartment. That's not to say that didn't have to go to the bathroom a few times for a different type of relief. Whatever the reason, Harry had undoubtedly had a massive increase in his magical power and Hermione really wanted to know why and more importantly what he could do with it.

The ride was much quieter than usual but that suited both of them just fine. When she saw her parents waiting she turned and hugged Harry tight. She felt herself surrounded by his magic but this time it simply made her feel comfortable and safe. She tightened her grip, knowing that he must be able to feel her budding breasts rub against his chest, and then let go. She gave a hurried goodbye and ran to her parents. 

Her mom gave her a knowing look when she noticed her daughter's deep blush but luckily her father was oblivious or doing a good job at pretending that he was. Hermione knew that she was probably in for The Talk when they made it home but all she could think about was how long till she would be off to the burrow for the Quidditch World Cup and able to see Harry again.

_________________________________________________________________________________________________

Harry met up with the Dursleys in a daze from the hug Hermione had just given him. It was brief but it was certainly noticeable how parts of her had grown which had been well hidden by the Hogwarts robes. When she let him go, she had turned away quickly but he was able to see her blushing face for a moment and sincerely hoped that it meant what he thought it did. He would be meeting her again during the summer before the Quidditch World Cup and he couldn't wait. He decided to see if she still saw him that way at that time and if she did, he would try asking her out. He was worried about making a fool of himself or ruining their friendship but he couldn't deny that he felt far more than that for her after all they had been through.

He endured the car ride with the Dursleys, enough said, and was quickly ushered into 'his' bedroom after being stripped of anything magical besides Hedwig. That was when he remembered that he was going to have a problem. While he was at Hogwarts he could get rid of his excess magic by casting spells in the unused classroom. The only thing he needed was any object, like the strips of paper he started using because none of the chairs had turned back yet, and his wand. 

Now that he was here it would not be possible to do so. Even if he had his wand, he wasn’t allowed to use magic away from school. This meant that all of the magic that he built up over the entire day, which was no longer countable by the number of wisps, would be left to burst as soon as he fell asleep and doing who knows what and Harry could easily imagine all the punishments he would have to do right up until the aurors showed up to arrest him of course.

With three days of practice, Harry had become good enough to manipulate several hundred wisps at a time without any thought. He experimented and discovered that if he drained his excess enough, he could fall asleep and still retain that much magic without letting it burst out. Over the train ride, with nothing much else to do, it felt like he had managed to increase that amount further but it was still nowhere close to his current stockpile which threatened to burst even with him actively controlling it.

He sat on his bed and got comfortable before devoting his full attention to his magic. The control that had been slipping, returned with full force and the outlying magic was pulled back in. In some ways he was glad that he would have something to do for the next few weeks of isolation besides staring at the wall. The only thing that usually kept him sane over the summers was talking with Hedwig but no matter how intelligent his familiar is, an owl wasn't the best conversationalist and he could only go for about an hour before he admitted he was mostly talking to himself. This stressful magical test of control was an almost pleasant alternative.

Once he was back in control he decided to continue with his little experiments that he had started at school. Most of the earlier experiments focused on seeing how to minimize the dangers of this condition. During the train ride he had come up with a handful of ideas that he didn't want to test in front of others and thus saved till now.

He started off by having one of the orbiting magic currents elongate till it was squished into an oval shape. Nothing much happened so he moved on to another shape and then another, observing for any changes. Unfortunately there wasn't anything of note after checking every shape that he could make without losing control. 

He tried a few more things, all to no effect, before he manipulated the magic to flow away from his core while keeping in his body. The results were noticeable instantly. He had a current of magic flow into and down his arm slowly before coming back up. Wherever the magic flowed felt like it had been run under warm water. While controlling the flow back he made it twist awkwardly to avoid colliding with its tail but the sudden change in direction was mimicked by the nearby muscles and Harry had hold back a scream as he felt them tear. 

He quickly corrected both flows so that they smoothly passed each other. The correction brought back the feeling of warmth and Harry felt the pain change into this sort of wriggling feeling that gave him goosebumps. When the feeling stopped he noticed that all of the pain had gone.

He moved his arm and noticed no discomfort, no stiffness, not even a bruise near where he felt the muscle tear. The current returned to its original location but Harry felt that it was ever so slightly smaller than before. He entertained the notion of using this healing property to drain his magic for all of two seconds in which the current had already returned to how it was before. 

Assuming that all healing would require a similar amount of magic, he would likely have to destroy over half of his body and the heal it within two seconds, to use up one current of his magic. He had twelve of those currents fully built and another would likely be formed by the time night came around if things kept up. 

Even if the pain didn't kill him or make him lose control anyway, he would only get about an hour of sleep before he would have to wake up and drain it again. It was certainly an interesting ability that he expected would save his life one day but it was useless for his current goal of draining his core. He would continue to practice circulating it around his body to improve his control but he didn't know what else to do.

_______________________

Harry first noticed something odd when he saw the clock displaying nine PM and he wasn't feeling the slightest bit hungry. It wasn't that he suppressed the feeling like he normally would but that he felt like he had just finished the snack he ate on the train. He wasn't feeling full and incapable of eating, just not hungry. When he checked the clock again sometime later and saw it display five AM and felt no tiredness he had a guess as to why. 

Moving his magic through a injured part of my body causes it to rapidly heal and uses a small amount of magic in the process. Since I have been practicing moving my magic throughout my whole body, my magic is essentially healing me and keeping me from falling below this neutral state. With this he might actually be able to hold off a lot longer than usual but it still didn’t seem to be using enough magic to drain him with how fast he was producing it. For now he would keep it up and test its limits.

After three days, Harry discovered that by using a larger current of mana the place it flowed would heat up more than usual and seemed to be more effective than before. Instead of keeping him at a neutral, it caused muscles to become more defined, strengthened his ligaments, and burned away what excess fat that wasn't burned off by his quidditch training routine. Harry wasn't particularly vain but after four days of sculpting himself to have six pack abs and arms that wouldn't be compared to twigs at first glance, he was feeling fairly confident about himself in a way he never had before. He did make sure to keep moderation in mind though, he didn't think that he could pull off a full blown muscle man look while waving a magic stick around to cast magic.

After he had stayed awake for two weeks straight did he reach his limit. His body still felt ready to run a marathon but his mental strength was bottomed out. He had tried everything he could think of over the second week to avoid this moment but he couldn't hold on anymore and he still had far too much magic stored up than the event in the common room. He couldn't even bring himself to worry about what would happen at this point. He fell onto his bed and held off for less than a minute before he fell asleep and his careful control was released. 

The one thing that Harry had not counted on during all his experiments was the effect that constantly circulating so much magic through his body non-stop for a week. He had unwittingly 'carved' the magical pathways into himself so that when the magic inside him rushed to escape using the path of least resistance it didn't try to burst out chaotically. No, it continued to flow along the same paths that they had been for the past week. Of course, without Harry's control it wasn't a perfect thing. Some wisps would be thrown out only to be pulled back in by the pull of the larger currents once again. 

Harry slept for an entire day, dead to the world around him, and never once did his magic act out. 


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Harry leaves privet drive for the Burrow.

It was finally Harry's fourteenth birthday. He could leave the Dursleys behind for the rest of the summer and the upcoming school year and the best part was his invitation to stay at the Burrow. He was sure the Quidditch World Cup would be amazing but even without, this would've been the best summer of his life just to be able to spend so little time with the Dursleys (who had been especially freaked out by the fact he wasn't dead despite not giving him any food while he was locked away for his entire stay). 

He had retrieved his trunk and left his gob smacked relatives to stare from the kitchen to wonder as to how he had survived their latest attempt to kill him by neglect. Extending his wand to call the Knight bus, Harry rode to the leaky cauldron where Mr. Weasley was ready and waiting to take him to the Burrow. After a quick greeting, Arthur grabbed Harry's shoulder and they side along apparated to a distance a little ways from the Burrow's front door.

It was the exact same precariously stitched together towering monstrosity that he remembered from before his second year but he couldn't help the smile that appeared on his face. He could see two of the many Weasley brothers, probably the twins, flying in the distance and tossing a quaffle through homemade quidditch hoops. The Weasley matriarch was visible in the lower window bustling about the kitchen while pots and pans zoomed about to perform their various tasks. Up four floors, Harry saw a familiar figure, with a head of brown bushy hair, sitting in a window seat and head buried into a thick tome. He loved the Burrow.

"Well, no point just standing around. Let's get you inside so that you can say hello." Mr. Weasley lead the rest of the way while lugged his trunk and Hedwig's cage behind him. Mr. Weasley had cast a featherlight charm on it at the Leaky Cauldron and with Harry's new musculature it was no problem to keep pace with the taller man. They made it all the way to the door before the Weasley location 'clock' gave away their presence. Harry was promptly pulled into a hug by Mrs. Weasley.

"My goodness. I didn't know that we you would be getting here so early." Her and harry just looked at Mr. Weasley who had a slight twinkle in his eye that said he knew something they didn't. Arthur had been the one to owl him saying that he could pick him up early but it seems he kept that as a surprise for his family.

"Oh, just one moment." Mrs. Weasley let go and walked to the base of the stairs leading all the way up to the attic.

"RON! GIRLS! Why don't you come down and say hello to Harry!" Harry guessed a healthy set of lungs would be necessary to communicate in a Weasley home but Mrs. Weasley almost put the howler she sent Ron in second year to shame.

A few moments later Ron appeared from the stairs and greeted Harry with that half hug pat on the back that guys do to avoid an actual hug. Ron had grown a little taller during the beginning of summer but was mostly the same as always. Fred and George apparently decided to finish there game at the right moment or noticed them walking up because they appeared just afterward from a side door and enthusiastically crowded around Harry with a big group hug.

"Hello there Honorary little brother of ours."

"Nice of you to join us in our humble abode once more."

"Especially nice that we didn't have to break you out to do so, isn't that right George?"

"Absolutely Fred. We would hate to have you lose another shoe and be down a full set."

"Unless they were both for the same foot."

"Ah, then he would have only two half pairs."

"Two left feet maybe?"  


"Well it is Harry."

"Oh, harhar. Very funny. Might want to remember what you gave me as a gift last year and what I could do with it any time I feel like raining on your prank parade before you throw jabs in my direction."

"You wouldn't," said the twin to Harry's left with an exaggeratedly fake gasp.

"You really think so Fred?" Harry quirked up an eyebrow at the twin that spoke and inwardly reveled at their groans of dismay.

"You know it's incredibly unfair that you can tell us apart like that."

"Takes all the fun out of our whose who twin routine."

"We spent a long time perfecting that."

"And we still don't even know how you do it."

"Well, I still don't know how you do your twin talk either so I'd say we're even on that front." Harry disengaged from the pretend sulking twins and cocked his head to the stairs where he heard the noise of footsteps.

"Harry!" "Harry!"

Harry's smile returned brighter then ever at the sight of Ginny and Hermione who had froze at the bottom steps of the stairs. He noticed that they were wearing the same odd expression and … was Ginny drooling? Benefit of the doubt, maybe she just woke up. He really hoped that was the case since her fangirl attitude from second year had been a bit uncomfortable. He didn't catch that Hermione had almost been in the same situation but swallowed before it could escape.

___________________________________________________

Hermione arrived at the Burrow the day before Harry was set to arrive and about three weeks before the Quidditch World Cup would begin. Her parents planned to go to a dentistry convention or something during this time and Hermione had opted to stay behind and join her friends early rather than join them on this occasion.

The novelty of a house built with magic in mind was slow to wear off but her patience was quickly whittled down by the genetic Weasley hyperactivity. The next morning, Hermione stole away before Ginny woke up and retreated to a window seat that she had discovered during her tour of the house and opened up a book on runes that she had picked up in Diagon Alley. She was about to get to the section on how to calculate the strength of an overlapping ward scheme when she heard Mrs. Weasley shout up.

"RON! GIRLS! Why don't you come down and say hello to Harry!" 

'Wait, Harry's here! He wasn't supposed to get her until closer to dinner. Why the cha- Not important. HARRY's HERE!'

Hermione carefully set down the book, bookworm habits not letting her risk damage to it, as quickly as she could and started towards the stairs.

'Why did I have to be on the fourth floor?' When she passed by Ginny's room, the red haired girl, who had been asleep, almost crashed into her by exiting at high speed. They took a moment to ensure they weren't going to fall over and then continued down the steps until they reached the bottom floor and caught sight of Harry.

"Harry!" "Harry!" the two girls called out but then their heads wrapped around what they were actually seeing and they froze.

'Oh wow. He did not look like that last time I saw him.' Hermione recognized that she was staring but couldn't really bring herself to stop. Luckily she had enough sense left to swallow back her saliva before she started drooling. 'That would've been embarrassing. I feel like a horrible friend for thinking about him like this but this is just too out of the blue.'

'Harry is always on the skinny side but its always been worse right after leaving the Dursleys, may they rot in hell, but he shows no signs of that. In fact he looks more toned than he usually does during quidditch season.'

Between his new appearance was linked with his magical aura which yet again increased. Hermione found herself wishing she had a bit of privacy. Yeah there was no denying it. 'Sorry mom. I'm so going to fuck hi- NO, NO, NO. BAD HERMIONE!'

Hermione's brain eventually managed to clear out its thoughts and successfully reboot. When it did, she took a step forward.

________________________________________________________________________________________________

Harry had been looking forward to seeing Hermione again since the moment she they separated at King's Cross. He was ready to keep his promise with himself but for now he was just glad to reunite with her as best friends. He opened his arms and she practically tackled him to accept his offered hug. Luckily, his new build helped to keep them on their feet. Once again he felt her budding chest press against his chest. Her arms were wrapped around him tight enough that he thought it might cause problems breathing. His own found their way to her back and he just kept them there for a while. Both teens came out of their stupor at the same time and pulled apart, faces blushing, and were glad that none of the Weasleys seemed to notice anything different about their hug.

None but the red haired only daughter of the family. Ginny walked up and gave Harry her own hug but Hermione could tell that she was acting stiffly. The hug was polite and not overly long. Afterwards, Ginny only stayed for a few more words before saying that she forgot something back in her room. Hermione watched her retreat and couldn't help but feel a little guilty. Harry had saved them both after all. If Hermione was the girl one year younger and Ginny was in Harry's year, Ginny would probably be Harry's best friend, and potentially more, instead of her.

She resolved to talk to Ginny before the younger girl went to sleep but for now she wanted to remain by Harry's side. They sat down in the living room and just spent some time talking on a sofa. Hermione told him about her parent's trip and what she had been doing beforehand. Harry cryptically stated he was doing some 'practice that Flitwick taught him' while his eyes carried that signature mischievous twinkle of the eye that she could now properly blame on his father's genetics and the influence of the last two living Marauders (Peter excluded for obvious reasons). Whatever it was, he confirmed that it did relate to his sudden increase in magic. His aura was soaking into her throughout their talk and so she eventually had to make her own excuse to return upstairs before her arousal gave her away. 

She didn't want to talk to Ginny right now but needed to grab a new pair of panties from her luggage to change into. Her current ones were drenched. She opened the door slowly and quickly realized a few things. First, she wouldn't be getting her panties right now. Second, she had a big misunderstanding earlier in regards to Ginny's reaction to Harry. Finally, she found out where the quidditch jersey Harry lost last year had gone to. 

Inside Ginny's room, which the two girls were sharing, was Ginny Weasley lying down on her bed and pleasuring herself. Her top was lifted enough to reveal the girls breasts which were transitioning between a mild swelling and full on breast bumps. Her pants were likewise displaced, with the waistband sitting around her knees. One of her hands held the jersey close to her face where she inhaled the smell of Harry while the other was pushed under her underwear and was moving furiously over the girls virgin slit. 

She couldn't fault the girl since she had been thinking of doing the same thing but she should have at least thought to lock the door. Hermione closed the door and spent the next hour or so trying to get the image of the pleasure-ridden red head from her mind. She didn't have much luck.

__________________________________________________________________________________________

The next few weeks were a riot of fun. The twins had told Harry about their idea for a joke shop and frequently used Ron as their personal guinea pig. When they had a problem with a few of their designs, Harry had looked over them and pointed out where things looked wrong to him. He didn't think it would be very helpful but they must have disagreed since they ended up running most of their latest designs by him first. 

Harry and Ron spent most of their time flying or playing wizard chess. It was a nice balance for the both of them since Harry's firebolt had him flying circles around Ron and Ron would always thoroughly rout all his strategies on the chess board. He was kind enough to say Harry was improving though in a backhanded manner. His exact words were 'At this rate, you might actually come close to making me try.'

In the beginning, Ginny seemed to return to her shy mode from the summer before Harry's second year, just not quite as bad, and was doing her best not to be in close proximity to Harry. When Harry noticed Hermione acting in a similar manner he decided to force the issue and ask her why directly. He caught her before she could flee from her latest hiding space and stood where it would be hard to get away without pushing him aside. He had only managed this because she had been absorbed in her latest book too much to realize he was there. When she did notice him her face turned red and the book was slammed shut.

"So… would you please tell me why you have been avoiding me like the plague for the past few days." She flinched.

She started mumbling under her breath for several seconds, too low for Harry to overhear, then her expression changed to one of anger and she brought her face up to face the boy-who-lived who now felt like he made a grave mistake and wished he was anywhere else. She held her glare on him and he thought he was going to break into a cold sweat. Hermione could be god damn terrifying when she tried.

"Are you doing this on purpose?" Harry was completely stumped by her question.

"Um … doing _what_ on purpose?" The glare intensified.

"…"

"You know, I don't _actually_ go out of my way to upset you and right now that's how you seem. Tell me what exactly you're talking about and I'll do my best to stop or fix it, whatever you want."

"…"

"Your magic has been … leaking, since Sirius' escape. It may not be bothering you but it is really … distracting, to the people around you."

Harry was shocked and inwardly groaned. How many more problems were going to spring up because of his faulty magic. More importantly, who all did he apparently affect while being none the wiser.

"I am so sorry Hermione. As far as that goes, I didn't realize that I had been letting it slip. I'm pretty sure I know the reason behind it though so just give me one moment."

Harry concentrated hard did his best to see where exactly his magic had been getting from him. He scanned close to his core which was now perpetually surrounded by many interwoven streams of magic. He couldn't find anything and backed away to get a broader view. It took a while but he slowly began to feel the magic that had apparently been leaking this entire time. It was coming off of his skin like steam from a hot cup of chocolate. It was thin and elusive, much less powerful than even the first wisp to leak out, which is probably why he never noticed it before now.

Unlike the wisps which he restrained to the area fairly close to his core or the currents that he could push throughout his body, this magic did not respond to any of his attempts to pull it back into himself. It slipped through his metal fingers like smoke and continued to billow outwards with no real change. It was especially frustrating since he had felt so proud of his ability to control the leaking magic and now have this portion of it laughing at all his attempts to affect it in any way.

It took a minute of careful observation to realize that there were certain spots where the steam collected around his body without dissipating. Sitting on his skin like mist on a lake rather than steam from a kettle. He tried to figure out what was different about these areas and the answer ended up being surprisingly straight forward. Any steam leaking from him was pooling around any area of his body that he was circulating his currents of magic through. He increased the intensity of one of the currents and saw that the steam was pulled and condensed until it almost resembled the density of a wisp. 

Once the magic condensed down, Harry was able to take control of it again and have it join the rest of his magic. This only worked as a proof of concept though. It would take even more concentration to carefully control enough current throughout his entire body so that no steam could escape and he couldn't just do it in one area because steam would just escape from the area further away and still cause mischief. Or could he?

The steam was attracted to the current as it moved and that attraction increased with the speed and intensity of the current. If he could just control a portion of his magic in one location to move fast enough it might be possible to restrain all of the steam while only having to focus on one area. And he had the perfect area in mind. If Hermione knew what he was about to try she would likely whack him upside the head but he couldn't think of any reason that it wouldn't work so he set about attempting it.

It was the exact opposite of Professor Flitwick's method for core stabilization but that was mostly for getting one's magic back into their core by slowing it down. Harry had long since gave up on any thought that his magic would ever fit in his core again so there wasn't much point in that aspect. Harry had instead been using Flitwick's method to create an artificial core of magic out of the currents orbiting his original one but continued to keep it slowed down to a minimum to make it easier to control. He looked at his core and the complex shell of interwoven magic currents and set about memorizing exactly how each current was flowing the jungle of magic around it. He slowly went about taking manual control of each current without causing a collision until the entire overlay was at his command. And then he sped it up. 

He could feel the many currents try to deform under the force of the new speed but they eventually balanced each other out. The inner currents sped up the most and acted as the force keeping the layer above it in place, and layer would stabilize the layer above that. All he had to do was continue to increase the speed of the inner currents and that change would cascade out to the outermost layer. He kept increasing the speed until the steam was no longer able to leave any part of his body.

"Phew. That should do it. Um, can you still feel it or did I manage to fix it?" Harry asked Hermione to make sure that he wasn't missing anything else that could only be noticed as an outside observer. Hermione's face was flushed and so Harry thought he wasn't as successful as he hoped but he couldn't think on it for long because Hermione had crossed the distance between them, grabbed him by the front of his shirt with both hands, and pulled him down into a deep kiss.

He stood in shock as his brunette best friend kissed him but when he felt her tongue flick across his lips he instinctively opened them to allow her entrance. His arms wrapped around her back with one on her head to deepen the kiss. Harry used the hand positioned lower to pull her body into him and felt one hand let go of his collar and reach toward his hand. He thought he must have gone too far but she simply moved it further down until it rested on her amazingly toned backside. He squeezed and was rewarded by Hermione moaning while they continued to snog. He gave her delightful ass a light pat then began to move his hand up and under her shirt so that his hand was gliding along her bare skin. He was just about to reach her brea-

"DINNER'S READY! Everyone come on down." 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The next chapter may take a while longer to post. I won't be taking a hiatus or anything but I do have classes and don't have much stockpiled material left.
> 
> Thank you for your responses. It is incredibly motivating to hear that you have been enjoying my content.


	4. The Quidditch World Cup!

For the first time in his life, Harry was actually mad at the Weasley matriarch and judging by the murderous expression on Hermione's face he wasn't alone. They stood there and listened to the cacophony that was the Weasley horde descending upon the kitchen. Harry's hand was still a good portion of the way up Hermione's shirt and he was loathe to abandon that contact but he nonetheless let her retreat and pull down her shirt till it was sitting properly again. Her hair was a little mussed where he had been running his hand through it.

A small part of him wanted to leave it. To have proof to show that he had just snogged the always prim and proper Hermione Granger and that he had marked her as his. But he doubted Hermione would appreciate it since he wasn't even sure where they stood as far their budding relationship went. He stepped forward and ran his hands through her hair again, this time taming the chocolate mane as much as it was wont to do. Hermione had closed her eyes and was apparently enjoying the feel of his hands a lot because she attempted to nuzzle into the contact like an adorable kitten. 

"I think we should head downstairs before Mrs. Weasley decides to send up the cavalry." Hermione snorted at that.

"You're right, I'm just a little sad that we had to end things so soon." She spoke flirtatiously and winked at Harry before she turned to the door. Before she could reach the door Harry's hand had grabbed out with the speed of a trained seeker and wrapped around her wrist. He reeled her back into his arms and kissed her as deeply as he could without involving tongue. She melted into his arms for a moment and he took that chance to move his hand so it once again rested on her rear. When he felt her try and deepen the kiss he backed off, knowing that he wouldn't be able to stop at that point. Harry decided then and there that a pouting Hermione was one of the most adorable things he had ever seen. 

"Wouldn't want dinner to get cold." Hermione glared at her smirking wizard but accepted when he outstretched his hand for her to grab. 

Because the Burrow lacked any form of privacy Harry and Hermione only managed to sneak in a few brief snogging sessions before it was time to leave for the Quidditch World Cup. Harry got up the courage to officially ask her to be his girlfriend during this time and she enthusiastically replied yes. Also during this time, Hermione had a talk with Ginny, the contents of which Harry was not privy to, and she seemed to no longer be avoiding him. Something that he was very grateful for since it was incredibly awkward for him to be on the receiving end of the celebrity treatment even with his three years of acclimation to his status as the boy-who-lived. He was still confused as to what had instigated her shyness however with her having almost gotten over it before the summer.

Harry decided to sleep the night before they were scheduled to set out for the stadium grounds. He had been closing in on his two week limit at the time and it wouldn't do for him to fall asleep halfway through the game. This meant that he had the misfortune to experience something that he hadn't been expecting. 

_________________________________________________________________________________________________

Cobwebs covered the walls and ceiling in such quantities that they could only have accumulated over years of inattention. On a rotting piece of furniture lay the misshapen thing whose point of view Harry was sharing. It was about as large as a toddler but its entire body was incredibly thin. Pale skin seemed to cling directly onto the ill proportioned skeleton that lay beneath. 

Two other people were in the ruined building with him, Pettigrew and someone who Harry had not seen before. They were talking but all of their words were muffled and distorted as if trying to communicate through water. A snake appeared from the doorway and began to hiss to the thing in the chair. Harry could see Pettigrew move towards the door before standing aside. The thing had a wand as white as bone clutched in its hand and pointed through the door at an old man who Harry had only just noticed. The next thing that the form said came through loud and clear to Harry as he observed.

"Avada Kedavra!"

__________________________________________________________________________________________________

"Harry! Harry!" With a start Harry seemed to be yanked out of his grim nightmare to see Hermione leaning over him with a candle in hand and face full of concern. 

"Bad dream." Harry said in response to her unasked question without any indication that he would share any more on the subject.

Hermione gave a tired sigh and then shifted into her usual authoritative demeanor.

"Both of you get up. Seriously! Ron! And don't go back to sleep. Your mother said breakfast's ready." Ron attempted to fall asleep as soon as Hermione had exited the room but Harry, now fully awake, dragged him out of his bed with threats of having the twins try their own version of a wake up call should he stay. 

A hurried breakfast and a few minutes of bustling as last minute items were packed into their bags and the group of the Weasleys plus their two guests set off into the woods.

"Umm… Ron? Where exactly are we going?"

"Don't know. Hey dad! Where we going?"

"Haven't the foggiest, keep up."

Harry and Hermione shared exasperated looks but they followed along nonetheless. When they were a good way into the woods, Harry could see a wizard, going by the outfit, in the distance. He had a similar bag on his back so Harry figured this must be the Mr. Diggory that Arthur had been saying that would be traveling with to the campsite for the Cup. 

"Arthur! It's about time son."

"Sorry Amos, some of us had a bit of a sleepy start." Arthur turned to face his youngest son.

"This is Amos Diggory, everyone. Works with me at the ministry." Then another person dropped out of the tree to land on his feet next to Mr. Diggory. He was tall and had good looks. Harry already knew him since he was another one of the Hogwarts quidditch players. The seeker for Hufflepuff was pretty much the only person to ever beat Harry to the snitch, even if Harry had been under attack by dementors at the time. 

"Ah, and this strapping young man must be Cedric am I right?"

"Yes, sir."

With two new additions, the group made their way out of the woods and up to the top of a hill where there sat an old boot. It seemed incredibly out of place on the otherwise empty field but no one else showed any surprise at its presence. Everyone began to circle around the boot and laying down with one hand on it. 

"Why are they all standing around that manky old boot?" Fred came up from behind Harry and began his answer with George completing it like always.

"That's not just any old boot mate."

"That’s a portkey."

"… What's a portkey?"

"Time to go." said Mr. Weasley.

"Ready everyone? After three. One. Two…"

"Harry!" exclaimed Mr. Weasley once he noticed Harry had still not grabbed the boot like the rest. Harry immediately reacted and grabbed it just in time.

"THREE!" and suddenly Harry felt like he was being yanked by a hook grabbing him from behind his navel. The world around him turned into a nauseating kaleidoscope and the only things he could focus on were the other members of the group.

THUD.

"Ugh. It's official, magical transportation must hate me." The two adults had landed gracefully and the other teens had managed to stay up right after a bit of stumbling but Harry seemed to have been flung from the portkey with enough force to have him rolling several feet to dissipate his momentum. Many of the others lightly chuckled at the boy-who-lived 's plight and Hermione offered him a hand up while wearing her own amused expression. 

"Well kids, welcome to the Quidditch World Cup."

When the campsite came into view Harry was stunned to see the vast sea of tents that sat between them and the top of the largest stadium Harry would ever see. Wizards flew all about doing stunts or tossing quaffles while fans of both teams put on their displays of support for the teams who would be playing in a few hours. Irish wizards had a merry band of bagpipes blasting away on one side of the grounds while bonfires emitting smoke that made a variety of shapes including an intimidating dragon could be seen on the other.

"I guess this is where we part ways. See you at the match." Mr. Diggory and his son went their own way while Mr. Weasley led them towards a tent another ways away. 

"Ah, home sweet home." 

Mr. Weasley pulled open the flap of the tent and ushered the group in. When Harry walked into the tent, fully expecting it to be a now very cramped enclosure, he was instead greeted to a space as large as a decently sized apartment. Separate rooms were set up and there was even a kitchen along the back lining of the tent. It was fully furnished and many hectic Weasleys could be seen maneuvering through the space and filling the air with their usual energy.

"I love magic."  
__________________________________________________________________________________________________

The stadium was full of over one-hundred thousand witches and wizards from all over the world, all cheering in anticipation for the game that would begin in just a few more minutes. The entire stadium looked big enough to hold ten cathedrals within its volume. Harry and his friends had seats near the very top ring of the stadium and sat perfectly between the two sides. 

Down on the field rose up two sets of three, fifty foot tall hoops. Across the stadium and almost eye-level with Harry was a large black screen that had golden script appearing on it as if written by a giant invisible hand and quill. Harry expected that it would act as the scoreboard for the game but for now it simply showcased a bevy of advertisements.

The Irish team had brought in a group of Leprechauns as their mascot and gold showered on the stands. Harry had difficulty explaining to Ron that it would disappear in a few hours while the red haired wizard shoveled the fake gold coins into his pockets. The Bulgarian team had a cheerleading squad that was apparently composed of Veela because all of the males, besides Harry, and a good portion of the females in the stands had collectively begun to drool at the sight of the women on the field. 

Harry noticed Hermione wearing an incredibly smug smirk on her face during the second display but he decided it would be in his best interest to just ignore it. Right before Ron could break away from Harry's hold on him and jump off the precipice towards the enchanting sight below, the Irish team made their entrance by swooping just feet above Harry's head. They did a loop around the stadium and let loose a group of fireworks which exploded into the form of a dancing leprechaun. Harry and the rest of the group all cheered for the team they were supporting and only quieted down when the Bulgarian team entered the field by smashing right through the pyrotechnic display. 

"Look! That's Victor Krum! He's the youngest professional seeker in the world!" Ron was wildly gesticulating towards one athlete in particular who had broken off from the Bulgarian team to perform a display of skill on his broom. Harry realized that this athlete was apparently being cheered for from both side's fans and felt impressed by some of his stunts as well, even if they were pointless showmanship. Once he stopped Harry could hear a voice being projected throughout the stadium.

"Good evening. As Minister of Magic, it gives me great pleasure to welcome each and every one of you, to the final of the 422nd Quidditch World Cup. Let the match begin!"

A referee who was floating between the two team opened the box in his palm to let the golden snitch fly away and officially begin the match. 

The match was just as if not more exciting than Harry had imagined that it would be. Every player was riding on the fastest model of broomstick which made them appear as green and red blurs as they flew through the air. Krum himself was an incredible seeker and Harry couldn't help exclaim when he watched him perform a perfect Wronski-Feint to near incapacitate the Irish seeker. Harry was about to say that he couldn't wait to practice that particular maneuver at school when he was hit with two withering glares, one from his girlfriend and another from Ginny. 

"Don't you even think about trying that Harry Potter. Your suicidal dives are already bad enough when you are actually going after the snitch, I don't need you to be doing them just because." Harry decided it was best not to argue but continued to replay the scene in his head to remember for later. 

"I hope this game doesn't last for too long. Harry already gets injured enough on his own, we don't need him having any more ideas for how to land himself in the hospital wing." Hermione was grumbling to Ginny while saying this but Harry was able to overhear and he rather thought that was the point.

"Unfortunately it probably will be a while. The snitch is nowhere to be seen. No matter how good a seeker is they are just eye candy as long as the snitch stays in hiding." Ginny said this while nodding her head to motion at Harry in jest and the two girls ended up giggling madly at his expense.

"It's right there though." Harry caught their attention and pointed to a spot near the top of the opposite side of the stadium where a golden winged orb buzzed about. The two girls looked at each other and chuckled.

"Of course he would find it faster than the professional Quidditch players." 

About an hour later, the two seekers seemed to catch on to the snitch's hiding location. They bolted after it on their brooms with Victor keeping the lead. The Irish were leading in points 170 - 10 and the Bulgarians stood no chance of victory anymore. Krum apparently knew this because he had no hesitation as he captured the snitch and ended the game with a 170 - 160 score. The Stands roared with cheers as the Irish team gathered to do their victory lap and continued well after they had been handed the golden cup and exited the field.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Tests are done!!


	5. Chapter 5

True rage was somewhat rare for Harry. The handful of times that he would lose his sense to anger mostly consisted of his confrontations with the dark lord and moments such as his incident with blowing up his aunt. He had had to learn to control his emotions growing up around the Dursleys and dealing with Snape had only honed this ability. Right now though, Harry potter was furious. 

Less than an hour after the game had ended and everyone had settled into their own celebrations and or pity parties, screams began to sound out through the campsite. At first Harry mistook them for the Irish ramping up their victory cheers once more. Mr. Weasley had gone outside for a moment before rushing back inside and telling everyone to grab their wands and run. 

When Harry left the tent he was greeted by a wall of fire and smoke in between the stadium and himself, that managed to block off all sight of the colossal structure. The swarm of people swept up the group and Harry barely managed to follow behind Hermione and Ginny while the rest of the group were diverted elsewhere. Harry had most of his attention focused on remaining standing so that he wouldn't be crushed in the mob so he was taken by surprise when its flow suddenly reversed leaving him behind. 

Only a dozen meters in front of where Harry now stood stock still and completely alone were two figures dressed in pitch black robes and skull-like masks. Their wands pointed towards where another two figures were being held in the air by magic. Their clothes and skin had several cuts and whatever spell was used to levitate them was apparently acting as a noose since their faces were quickly turning blue. One of them had long red hair while the other had a mane of bushy chocolate waves. 

Harry saw red. 

_____________________

Amelia Bones, head of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement had long passed furious and was now comfortably resting at livid. For weeks she had all but yelling at Fudge to fund an increased security for the Quidditch World Cup. Every time she brought up the subject she was dismissed or not so subtly diverted into discussing preparations for the upcoming Triwizard Cup which brought its own share of migraines. Now after an attack that they were unprepared to handle had occurred he had instantly changed tunes and was running around like hair was on fire and frantically spinning stories to shift the blame.

Of course he wasn't the real villain here. No, those would be the death eaters that actually did the attack like Lucius Malfoy. It was no secret among the auror department that when they had all arrived, the last of the death eaters threw up the dark mark in the sky and fled. Every direct victim of a death eater had been caught by surprise and then disarmed so the death eaters had almost gotten away without receiving a single injury. One death eater had apparently been attacking two young girls, Granger and Weasley if she remembered correctly, before mysteriously losing an arm and large amounts of blood before fleeing like the rest. Amelia's bet for the identity of the medal candidate was on Harry Potter, who had also been at the scene, but when the aurors checked the three's wands there was no spell that was recorded as having been cast since they left Hogwarts let alone one meant to sever an arm. 

Less than an hour later, Lucius Malfoy appeared at St. Mungo's hospital with a most particular set of wounds. A missing arm and severe blood loss. And yet, Amelia was not allowed to arrest him because there was no definitive proof linking the two according to Fudge who was obviously defending the main contributor to his personal vault rather than anything else. Because the pompous bastard was the Malfoy family head, without the minister's permission, Amelia couldn't arrest him unless he not only confessed during a wizengamot session and _asked_ to be arrested. Yes, Amelia was livid. 

Knock, knock.

"Come in." Amelia looked up from her paperwork to see one of the newer aurors walk in holding what looked to be a rolled up newspaper. When they walked up to the edge of the rug they promptly fell face first to the floor. 

Amelia let out a long sigh. "Auror Tonks! Get up and tell me why you decided now was a good time to interrupt me." 

The girl stood up and gave a quick glare at the rug before looking at Amelia and responding.

"Thought you might want something to brighten your day and knew that you would find this as cathartic as I did," she said while waving about what was indeed a rolled up newspaper though obviously not the Prophet.

Amelia took the paper and unrolled it to see that it was in fact the Quibbler. She had bought the Quibbler exactly once before deciding that the more unbiased news was not worth being bombarded by the very vibrant articles on a bevy of creatures that she was near certain were entirely fake. When she looked at the front page, all of the distracting visual effects that she remembered were nowhere to be found. What could be seen were two articles placed side by side with a very faint line drawn between them. The article on the left, the one Amelia's eyes immediately focused on, was all about the lone wounded terrorist and their "unforgivable and heinous assault warranting no less than the dementor's kiss". She didn't understand why the pink haired girl would be so excited about this paper until she shifted her attention to the right where an article was written on the horrible tragedy that occurred to one Lucius Malfoy. 

The entire thing was a masterpiece. It was obvious to anyone that the paper was stating Lucius was the death eater but was very carefully avoiding directly stating the fact. Well, that is if you pay attention to that very faint line. The two articles had been written perfectly so that if you read from one side to another over the dividing line, you would read a very different article. 

For example

"with little traces left of their whereabouts.| he is indeed staying at St. Mugos.

"The true identity of the terrorist is| Lord Malfoy who is still recovering from injuries

" unknown at this time. It is known he| lost his arm and suffered from blood loss which

" left the scene with a large puddle of blood| required many blood replenishing potions.

"originating from his severed arm. | ….

Amelia broke out into a fit of laughter once she had reread the article for the second time. She knew that it wouldn't do much good since the Quibbler really did have a horrible reputation and small purchase group but Lucius would definitely have a few more wary eyes watching him from now on. She could only imagine the look on his face if he read this particular article. In fact…

"Mipsy." at the call, a house elf appeared with a little pop in front of her desk.

"Yes Mistress?"

"I would like you to purchase two copies of the Quibbler. One will be kept for me so place it in my office at home. Deliver the second to Lucius Malfoy who is currently at St. Mungo's."

"Yes Mistress."

"What I wouldn't give to see his face while he's reading that." muttered Tonks as the house elf dissapparated away.

"Right now, you should be returning to work." Tonks straightened up and said farewells before ducking out of her office. 

Amelia returned her attention to the stack of paper that was stacked up on her desk. Pulling the top sheet off for review she lost the little bit of good mood that she had just gotten back. It was the final documentation detailing the contents of the first task of the upcoming Triwizard Cup. In the back of her mind she was glad that her niece Susan wouldn't even be allowed to sign up, not that she was likely to, but the grim reality was that three students would soon competing in a tournament known for its kill count and would be facing off against actual dragons with no forewarning.

'Maybe it will just be more passive breeds. They could still put up a fight under the right circumstances but would be less likely to go for the kill.' She pulled the next page in front of her and was greeted by the sight of a fully animated picture of a Hungarian Horntail spewing fire and bending its cage's bars as it thrashed about.

"Fuck."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry that this chapter took so long and is a bit shorter than usual. It took a while to decide how I wanted this event to affect this universe since a powerful harry would indeed be able to change things that he wouldn't have been able to before. Some major hints as to the reasons behind Harry's magic will be coming soon so look forward to that. 
> 
> Thank you for reading and hopefully enjoying.


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Caution: Contains Suicidal thoughts

Lucius Malfoy woke up in a cold sweat as a now familiar nightmare disturbed his sleep. His eyes automatically focused on where his right arm used to be to confirm that it was truly gone. It seemed like a cruel joke when the mediwitch at St. Mungo's told him that it would be impossible to heal despite the fact that there was no indication of dark magic on the wound. They had no idea why the wound was slow to heal but he knew. More than that, the reason had been burned into his memory and was the cause of his lack of sleep. He slipped out of his bed and made his way to his stash of alcohol as he had for the past five nights. He picked a bottle and random in the dark and took a large gulp of the drink. When he was treated to the sight of flames spewing from his mouth he realized he had opened the firewhiskey that was meant to be a bribe for one of the Hogwarts board members. The magical fire lit up the room enough that Lucius could see his haggard appearance reflected on the window.

The attack on the campsite was meant to be an easy show of who was truly in charge of the wizarding world and to remind those upstart mudbloods that their place was under a pureblood's heel. They had bribed the Minister into reducing the security for the event and most of the aurors that were selected for duty were rookies who would have run away at the first sign of trouble. Unfortunately for Macnair, he had been unlucky enough to run into the one auror with some spine that night. He wasn't injured but definitely had his fun cut short.

Lucius had been in another part of the campsite, burning down several clover covered tents when who should appear but the Weasley daughter and, going by his son's description, Harry Potter's pet mudblood. It had been all too easy to disarm them in the confusion and a quick levitation charm had them dangling at his mercy. The mudblood was barely worth dirtying his hands for but the red haired witch would make a nice little toy. Her family might be blood traitors but she was still a pureblood and it would be so much more devastating for Arthur if her body were to turn up at the ministry in a few days bloody and broken.

Instead, he had to triple his bribe for the minister and relearn how to use magic with his non-dominant hand. He had to wash down the sensation of pain in his non-existent arm with the burn of his strongest alcohol. He had to-

His thought was interrupted by a flash of pain emanating from the dark mark tattooed on the inside of his left arm. The flashes of pain were becoming more and more insistent since the incident at the world cup and that could only mean one thing. The Dark Lord would soon return.

'Maybe Harry Potter's corpse would make an adequate gift to welcome him back.' Lucius laughed to himself at the thought before his mind went back to the night he lost his arm. Back to the sight of a furious boy-who-lived wreathed in magic so dense that he could barely breath, and the helplessness as his magic was smothered before it could even leave his wand. 'Then again, the Dark Lord always did like to take care of those that defied him … personally'

* * *

Hermione sighed in relief as she watched Harry and Ron flying together around the Weasley quidditch posts. Harry had been withdrawn ever since the attack at the world cup and refused to talk about what exactly what was bothering him. Even Hermione had only been able to glean a few extra snippets of information from her brooding boyfriend.

Ron had actually showed an impressive level of maturity during all of it, after he finished laughing at Malfoy's plight for several hours, and stuck to Harry's side. He would drag Harry out of their room if he seemed to be spending too much time alone and engaged him in games of gobstones and wizard chess. Now they seemed to be practicing for this year's quidditch season. Harry was zooming across the field on his firebolt taking shots with the quaffle while Ron practiced defending the hoops. With Wood gone, Ron seemed to be hoping for a spot as the new Gryffindor Keeper. Hermione heard a knock at her door and saw Ginny Weasley standing in the doorway.

"Mind if I come in?" Hermione thought that it was a bit odd since she was in the room she had been sharing with Ginny for the summer but just nodded her assent. Ginny walked in and sat down on the bed across from Hermione. She was seated so that Hermione had to take her eyes away from the window to face her but she figured that Harry would be still be there in a few minutes. She looked at Ginny expectantly while the redheaded witch seemed to be struggling with a sudden bout of nerves.

"Can you tell me stories about Harry?" Ginny must've seen Hermione's anger leaking through her expression and paled a bit before hastily trying to explain herself. "Not like that. I know that he hate's being known as the boy-who-lived because of his parents. I've been trying to forget all of that but its hard to make myself believe he's not some epic hero when he did actually save my life. I was wondering if you could tell me about well … Harry?" Hermione calmed down after Ginny was finished and couldn't help empathizing with her. But there were some things that weren't hers to share and Harry was too complex a subject to try and explain half-heartedly. But there was something bothering Hermione.

"What really brought this on?" Ginny looked down and shifted uncomfortably for a bit before whispering almost too low for Hermione to hear.

"The attack at the cup a-and … the diary." Hermione shivered a little at the memory of Tom Riddle's Diary but needed to press on.

"What do you mean?"

"When Tom was possessing me I was always afraid. At first I was afraid of losing the only thing I saw as a friend. Then I was scared of what was happening to me when I found hours of my life missing in my memory. Near the end of the year I had realized what was going on but couldn't do anything to stop it. I was terrified that I'd be blamed or worse yet, that Tom would actually manage to kill someone because of me. I thought it was all over when Harry destroyed the diary but it didn't go away. The next year, I heard someone talking about how it felt when a dementor was nearby. The coldness and fear. The feeling as if you'll never be happy again. I realized that the dementors weren't affecting me all that much because that was already how I felt."

Hermione's eyes went wide. Most Azkaban prisoners go insane within a couple months of exposure to Dementors. If it was really that bad then Ginny had essentially spent her entire second year feeling like a dementor was nearby.

"When the attack happened, I think there was a small part of me that was almost relieved that it would all end. The only thing I regretted was that you would also die. But then Harry came. Being wrapped in his magic at that moment, for the first time in a year, made me feel safe again. It was like he finally destroyed the last few chains connecting me to that monster. I honestly believe that if Harry hadn't helped me then I would have killed myself before I graduated."

Ginny was sobbing at this point and Hermione was feeling way in over her head but leaned forward and wrapped her arms around the younger witch who reciprocated with a grip that almost made it hard to breathe. It took several minutes for her to calm down and Hermione found herself slightly missing the hug as she pulled away. 'Maybe a few stories wouldn't hurt.'

"I met Harry on the train while looking for Neville's toad…."

Hermione and Ginny spent the next hour talking to each other. Sometimes talking about Harry but mostly talking about themselves or the upcoming schoolyear. Hermione helped Ginny think through which electives she wanted to take. At one point Hermione explained that she and Harry had started officially dating, a fact that Ginny took with surprising ease. Ginny soon admitted that she had stolen one of Harry's quidditch jerseys, though she didn't say why, and Hermione recalled the scene she had seen on the day that Harry arrived. Both girls were blushing like mad and avoiding eye contact. It wasn't the first time that Hermione had been reminded of that event as it would occasionally make itself known during one of her Harry fantasy sessions.

It had caused her some internal confusion at first since she had never considered the possibility that she might be gay or at least bi-sexual given how much Harry got her hot and bothered. She eventually decided that her admiration for Ginny was purely physical since she was very attractive nowadays but having spent the last while bonding with her she felt that she may need to change her perspective. 

Ginny looked up eventually though Hermione saw that her eyes were focused more to her left where the window was positioned. She turned to look as well and noticed how late it had gotten. Harry and Ron were still flying though the hoops seemed to have been abandoned. Ron was just hovering in place while holding the quaffle while Harry floated a few feet away. Then Ron dropped the quaffle and Hermione felt her stomach drop with it as she suddenly guessed what was going to happen next. Sure enough, Harry began to plummet out of the sky, beelining for the falling quaffle. He caught up with it scant feet above the ground and reached out with both hands while simultaneously pulling up on the speeding broomstick with his knees. It was a perfect quidditch maneuver that would put most professionals to shame but as Hermione's concern was eased it was quickly replaced with rage.

"HARRY POTTER!" She was going to continue when Ginny rose up beside her and finished the thought.

"WHAT THE HELL WERE YOU THINKING!"

* * *

After Harry had been thoroughly scolded by his overwrought girlfriend and furious Ginny Weasley he had been, in his mind unfairly, banned from broom privileges for the rest of the summer. He was going to comment that neither of them could really enforce that when he saw the look on Hermione's face that somehow informed him that ignoring their orders would mean no kissing Hermione for a similar length of time and he rather enjoyed kissing his girlfriend. Instead he hung his head, hoping to look properly contrite, and agreed to no more flying. They went in for dinner and eventually made their way to bed. Harry knew that he didn't exactly have to sleep more than once a fortnight but once everyone else was asleep the only thing to do for entertainment was reading and he had already finished all of his textbooks. Ron had of course fell asleep as soon as he hit the mattress but Harry found sleep eluding him like it had for the past few nights.

Harry ignored Ron's loud snoring as he chose to stare intently at his hands. He could see his magic flowing over them under his control. But were they really under his control? Everyone kept on praising what he did to the Death Eater and saying that any one of them would have reacted the same way but none of them really knew what happened. None of them knew how close Harry had been to killing him. And worse yet, he felt absolutely no remorse for that fact. All he had been thinking was that someone had tried to take what was his, a sentiment he was sure that Hermione would not appreciate, and that they should pay.

Everyone had said that it was natural to hesitate on a battlefield so how could he tell them that he truly had every intention to end a life, to become a killer. It wasn't him but his magic that had let the Death Eater escape and now who knew who would be his next target. Maybe next time he would target Hermione again and Harry wouldn't be around to save her.

Harry laid back down and tried to fall asleep with limited success. All the while he couldn't help but feel that his magic was moving sluggishly through his body. It felt thick and heavy, leaving a phantom sensation of grime wherever it passed.

It felt like blood.


End file.
